A week passed; the only incident it produced was that I was clad in mourning from head to foot. I continued to charm Miss Murray by a listless apathy, which increased every day. I either sat in the parlour looking at her sewing, or in a little back garden, on a low wooden bench near the door. Once there, I moved no more until called in by Abby. Thus she and Sarah found me late one afternoon, at the close of the week. I took no notice of their approach. They looked at me, and sagaciously nodded their heads at one another. A mysterious dialogue followed.
"Eh?" inquiringly said Sarah.
"Yes!" emphatically replied Abby.
"Never!" exclaimed Sarah.
"Oh dear, no!" was the decisive answer.
Sarah sighed, sat down by me, asked me how I was; if I knew her; and other questions of the sort. I neither looked at her nor replied. She rose, held herself up as a warning to Abby "not to place her affections on Master William;" to which Abby indignantly replied "there was no fear;" then solemnly forgave me my ingratitude.
As they re-entered the house, I thought I heard the voice of Cornelius O'Reilly in the passage. My apathy vanished as if by magic. I was roused and rebellious. Cornelius O'Reilly had not come near me since my father's death: at once I guessed his errand was to take me away with him. I looked around me: a back door afforded means of escape; I opened it, slipped out unperceived, then glided along a lonely lane. In a few minutes I had reached Rock Cottage, unseen and unmissed.
The home is an instinct of the heart, and as the wounded bird flies to its nest, I fled for refuge to the dwelling which had sheltered me so long.
The garden-gate stood open, but the front door and windows were shut. I went round to the back of the house; my heart sank to find that there too all was closed and silent. I sat down on the last of the stone steps, vaguely hoping that some one would open and let me in. I listened for the coming of a foot, for the tones of a voice; but sounds of life there were none. Above me bent a lowering sky, sullen and dark; the wind had risen; the pine-trees at the end of the garden bent before the blast, then rose again, seeming to send forth a low and wild lament; the tide was coming in, and the broken dash of the waves against the base of the cliff was followed by their receding murmur, full and deep.
An unutterable sense of woe, of my desolate condition, of all that had been mine and never could be mine again, came over me; my heart, bursting with a grief that had remained silent, could bear no more. I gave one dreary look around me, then clasping my arms above my head, and lying across the stone steps, I wept passionately on the threshold of my lost home. At length a kind voice roused me.